A Can't-Miss Flick from Steve McQueen (the Other One, That Is)

Creative Time is giving New Yorkers a good reason to check out Governor’s Island, but those art lovers who won’t set foot outside of Manhattan (never in short supply) aren’t without recourse. British video artist Steve McQueen’s 1997 Turner Prize-winning short film, Deadpan, began its run on MTV’s Times Square 44½ megascreen this week, in its first-ever outdoor showing. A send-up of Buster Keaton’s classic gag sequence from Steamboat Bill, Jr., Deadpan depicts McQueen—from multiple angles—as the side of a clapboard barn collapses on him. (Like Keaton, he passes through an open window unscathed...despite 18 takes.) "So many people were made homeless post-Katrina, and I think the image—a house, a home—is very apt for what’s going on in the economic climate right now," says McQueen, who recently returned from the Venice Biennale, where he represented Great Britain. After that, how does he feel about showing amid the roar of Times Square? "I think this is the ideal venue," he says. "It’s sort of the middle of a hurricane, and you’re in the eye of the storm."